He greeted me with a limp, from the knee
stiff like stale balsa wood that would break
on a heavy step. He stumbled out of his cave—
the room, in which my mother and him settled
a piece treaty of sorts. Their beds touching, bare
at the edges; just enough to breach the nine month
separation they endured. His thick words trickled
from his mouth, in a barely audible sound as though
he was praying under his breath for god to come soft
and steal him from the bodily pain. At first he greeted
me with name of my uncle, then he paused and searched
my visage for a question. The dead air around us was loud
enough to bleed an eardrum. "Oh," he said, "it's you. What
are you doing here?" I had come to feed the animals, but in
turn, I left with the ghost of my father, who is not dead, but sick.
